Throwback Caller: Breast Cancer Survivor Working to Get Her Family Off Welfare

RUSH: Here is Tasha from central Illinois. It's great to have you. I'm glad you waited. The Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hello. How are you?

RUSH: I'm good. Thank you.

CALLER: Hey, I just wanted to call because something interesting happened yesterday here in Illinois on the state level. I'm a 39-year-old single mother of two boys who listen to you regularly when they're in the car with me, and I am putting myself back through school to become a registered nurse because I want to better myself and to provide for my kids.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: We had a political action day yesterday at the capitol, and I'm sitting here listening to groups, they're trying to get us to join professional groups, which I do support, you know, we need to be involved in the political action at the state level for the care of our patients.

RUSH: Right, right.

CALLER: One girl got up there and literally had her own victory dance, almost, and she was sitting there talking about how the state has almost reached their -- and I'm quoting -- goal of X-amount of people that, through Obamacare, are now on Medicaid. She's like, "We're almost there." I know my mouth actually fell open because my friend next to me was like, "What's wrong?" I was so offended by that, because I am, on paper, that targeted demographic. I do not have a job outside the (unintelligible). I'm well below poverty level, but I'm not taking any state aid because that's what I'm working to stay off of. I'm putting myself through school and putting myself --

RUSH: You are a throwback. You are a throwback. You are actually working to get yourself off of welfare and other kinds of aid?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Do you know how rare that is?

CALLER: It's frustrating. It's very frustrating because I do believe in those programs, and I know they're there to help people. My sons, they're on the lunch program at school and I'm not ashamed to say it because I do need that help in some areas. But I am choosing to put myself through school and actually last year I was sick. I got breast cancer and I am blessed enough in my life where I made choices early on, like I said, I'm 39, I joined the military at 18 and I'm still in, you know, on a part-time status here in my state, and I get my private insurance through them. So I do pay a premium even though I did not have a job, I paid my premium, and the State of Illinois and the US government did not pay for my cancer treatment.

RUSH: Okay. Okay.

CALLER: I paid for it.

RUSH: So kudos to you. Here you are trying to gain control of your life. You want self-reliance. You want to be responsible for yourself. And you're sitting there and you're listening to somebody tout and celebrate the number of people we're getting to sign up for aid and welfare. And you don't understand it because you're trying to rid yourself of that encumberment, correct?

CALLER: Yes, and she was smiling. And I'm like, "You gotta be kidding me." You know, just the timing of the event and the closing of course 'cause they kept moving the deadline, it just happened to be the next morning.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: And she's like, "And I'm sure we've got people that are in the system," and she kept going on and on like it's the best thing ever.

RUSH: Well, look. How many people in this crowd were women, would you say?

CALLER: Well, it was 1200 students, and there were nursing students. So a majority of them were women.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Like I said, I'm an older student. There was a mix, but most of them were younger students, and I'm thinking, "If I would have heard this..." I mean, I've been to college before, and I actually heard the Reverend Jesse Jackson talk when I was younger. He is a smooth-talking guy, and he just swooped in the poor college kids like you wouldn't believe, and I'm sitting here thinking, "How many people...?"

RUSH: Look what you have run up against. You've run flat up against the modern reality, which is that if you're an American, the government owes you, and the objective is to get your benefits.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Get your benefits! Sign up, get your aid, and have the government pay. It doesn't matter if what you're signing up for is bankrupt, such as Medicaid. It doesn't matter! You are owed benefits because you are an American, or because you've had a tough life, or because you've had some guy who was mean and did you dirty and you're a single woman now and the odds are against you.

Somebody's gotta give you benefit. Here you are trying to establish independence. You do not want to be indebted to or owing this to anybody. You want to be self-reliant, and I'm sure it's eye opening. You thought you were like most people, that most people were like you, and you found out that's not the case -- at least in that universe of people where you're hanging around.

CALLER: No. The thing is, now I'm thinking, "A year from now on when I graduate and I have a bachelor's degree in nursing, what is my income gonna be if I have to...? What's health care cost gonna be, you know? How much am I improving myself to where now, I guess, half my income's gonna go to taxes?"

RUSH: Here's what you need to do. You need to walk through that crowd the next time it assembles and ask them how much they want from you. They'll say, "What are you talking about?" "Well, you're out there demanding aid. Who's gonna pay for it? So how much do I owe?"

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: And see what happens. 'Cause they don't personalize it. They don't think the money is coming from other people like them. They think it's coming from Obama's stash, or this bottomless pit of money they think the government has, or whatever. How old are your boys?

CALLER: My oldest is 14, and my youngest is eight.

RUSH: Eight. Well, by any chance -- you probably don't -- do you have copies of my books?

CALLER: I don't, but I listen to all the people call and talk about how wonderful they are.

RUSH: Well, you've got them now. I'm gonna send you both books. I'm gonna send you both books and the audio for both books, especially for your eight-year-old. The age group is 10-13. But your 14-year-old will benefit from this, too, given that you're doing what you're doing for yourself. The reason I wrote these books for children, for young people, is to counter the exact kind of thinking you saw there.

That's being inculcated and taught during their formative years in school, that they're owed something. I just want 'em to understand where this all began, where this country began. So if you'll hang on, Tasha, we'll get your address and get that stuff out to you. I'm happy to do it. Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, and Rush Revere and the First Patriots (the new one) are both available, both out now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The event that Tasha attended was the American Nurses Association of Illinois. It was the 16th Annual Student Nurse Political Action Day, and she was all excited to go. I mean, she gonna be a nurse. "Political action? Hey, we need be active!" What she didn't realize was that the organization's definition of "political action day" is: "How do we get ourselves on the government gravy train?"

It's, "How do we grow the size of government and become part of the government?" And the whole idea... What she ran up against was the idea or the fact that these nurses or whoever's leading this organization, whoever's running it, wants to make sure that people get enough benefits that they never try to get off of them. You know, it used to be that welfare was not enough. It was enough for basics, but it was not enough to coast on.

Now it is. The left's whole idea of welfare is as a replacement for work based on the premise that work is "job lock," work is punishment, work ties you to mean people like the Koch brothers and you can't discover the inner poet or photographer that's in you. But now they're gonna come along and they're gonna pay you plenty on welfare, so much that you don't need or don't want to get off of it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It may sound controversial to say it. It was the truth. Welfare used to be a bare subsistence. It was not intended for you to be able to live on. The left realized that wouldn't work. They had to make it something you could live on so that you wouldn't want to give it up.